April 11, 2007

Desperate Measures

First, a disclaimer: This column was written under the influence of Robitussin. All errors and omissions are not the fault of this newspaper - they are due solely to the fact that the columnist is at this moment, a giant phlegm factory that is running 24 hour shifts with no shut-down date in sight.

I thought about calling in sick, but then I realized that some of you are also home producing excess mucous and have no energy to do anything more strenuous than read the paper. I couldn't let you down.

It started with a tickle. You know, a little dryness in the throat that I passed off as excessive thirst. I tried drowning it by gargling. That served only to give the germs a rafting trip up into my sinuses, where they set up camp and began multiplying in the Petri dish that is my head.

Around the third day, the cough started, settling into my chest until it burbled and hissed like a leaky radiator. I couldn't lie down because my lungs filled up, so I sat up in bed that night, listening to Keeper and Corky snore. At one point I heard a third snore. Had I fallen asleep? Had my head finally floated off of my body so that I could observe myself from the ceiling? No, it was just my lungs rattling after each labored breath, like an engine that shudders and kicks after you take the key out of the ignition.

I'm not opposed to taking drugs. In fact, I'm a proponent of better living through chemistry. After all, what are we but a big sack of chemicals and water, anyway? Sometimes we need a teaspoon of this or a pinch of that to maintain the correct balance, just like the water in a hot tub.

At first, though, I fought it alone, just on principle. No brainless microscopic bug was going to get the better of me! My opening strategy, when the sore throat began, was to repeat 10 times a day that I was in perfect health and to express my gratitude for that. I had just read "The Secret," which teaches that disease is the result of our failure to think correctly. This sounded a little Christian Scientistical to me, but I thought I'd give it a shot. "I am feeling fine. I am in perfect health," I croaked, growing more hoarse with each repetition of my mantra. I hedged my bet with the salt water gargle, which I suppose told the Universe that I didn't totally trust it. Ergo, it failed to manifest the perfect health I had asked for. I gave up repeating the affirmations when the laryngitis set in.

It was time to do drugs. I crawled to the medicine cabinet. I had 7 boxes of cold medicine, all of them the "Nighttime" variety. There wasn't a "non-drowsy formula" to be found. I took one Nighttime pill with an Excedrin chaser. The two formulas were so busy fighting it out for my consciousness that they failed to address the issue - I had a stinker of a cold and it was getting worse.

This week has been a blur of daytime TV, stinky pajamas and keeping Corky from eating my wadded up tissues, which seem to be right up there with cat poop as a doggie delicacy.

Every evening, Keeper's homecoming is a joyous occasion which means a walk for Corky and dinner and clean jammies for me.

Nights are spent propped up in bed listening to my wheezing lungs perform a solo in the snoring symphony going on in our bedroom while I alternately kick off the covers and pull them over my head.

I've tried chicken soup. I've prayed to Saint Jude. I've swallowed so much sticky cough syrup I could paint my house candy apple red with my tongue. And I'm still a perpetual coughing machine. I give up. What's the number for 9-1-1?